First steps

Are you moving to Espoo? I have been a proud espoolainen (Espoo resident) for over 7 years. Espoo is an amazing place to move to, especially for families. Espoo is the second largest city in Finland, but over half of its territory is covered in forest. It is also a multicultural area, with 18% of residents speaking a language other than Finnish or Swedish and over 150 nationalities. This prompted City of Espoo to declare English an official a service language in 2017. City of Espoo has a strategy and a roadmap to become an international city by 2030 (you can give your input through this survey). The values of the town are focus on residents as customers, sustainable innovation, and fairness. A growing number of services are available in English, making it the most welcoming city in Finland for immigrants that choose English as their communication language.

If you have just moved to Finland or plan to do so, read my crash guide. It contains all the ‘street life’ advice that official guides don’t. If your destination is Espoo, make sure to check out all the steps you need to take as a newcomer to get settled.

Start building your support network as soon as possible! I have collected some tips to help you here.

Participating in the town’s life

Whether you are planning to move to Espoo or you are a long-time espoolaisen, you have to hop to the Hello Espoo portal. It’s a goldmine of information, tailored for newcomers and international residents. Hello Espoo also manages a public Facebook group, which is the best channel to be up-to-date with events and news.

Recently, City of Espoo has built a new channel for international residents to engage with city officials: the Town Hall Meetings. These are monthly gatherings, usually focused on a specific theme, where residents can ask information, give feedback, and actively participate to the city’s life. Nowadays, the meetings moved to a virtual platform (although I believe you can also take part in the location where they are held). The next will take place on October 29th (16:00-17:30) and it will focus on Early Education and Education services (registration required). This is a great opportunity for parents to learn more about the services and input into their design! To learn about the next Town Hall Meetings, sign up to the Hello Espoo Facebook group.

Furthermore, all residents are invited to input to the town’s long-term strategy through the “My Future Espoo” survey. Let me stress how important participation is. After all these years living in Espoo and after facing many life situations (unemployment, illnesses in the family, special needs of children, school, …) I realised how many barriers and gaps there are in services for residents like me. If we have a chance to participate in service design, we have to take it.

Life with children

Espoo is the ideal town for families, with the perfect balance between quiet and activity, urban landscape and nature.

Public daycares and schools serve zones, so children are assigned to the local school unless you request otherwise. Service quality is quite homogeneous, so you don’t have to worry about where to move to get the best education. You can find instructions to sign up your child to school or daycare in this page. If you are signing up for daycare, don’t miss my guide on everything your child needs to attend daycare in Finland.

It’s worth mentioning how City of Espoo has recently launched a new service for multicultural families called Moniku. Finland in general is a constellation of associations and organisations: for other forms of support read this extensive post.

What if my kid is already attending school?

School is completely free in Finland up to a master degree. There are no attendance fees, food is free, and the school provides all books and materials. This is valid for Finnish public schools, I am not well informed on private and international schools.

School-aged children enjoy a lot of independence here in Finland. For example, most of them walk to and from school, take public transport independently, and stroll around the neighbourhood.

When it comes to afternoon childcare, these are the most popular options:

• afternoon activity clubs. They are available for 1st and 2nd graders. Attendance fees are quite cheap and the clubs often have amazing activity programmes. 
• open playgrounds. There public structures (also known as asukaspuisto or leikkipuisto) are managed by city staff . They offer free-of-charge activities for school-age kids in the afternoons and a safe place to spend time before going home. Compared to the afternoon clubs, they have less structure. 
• youth centres (nuorisotilat). Youth centres are free of charge and open to all school-age children, although their programmes cater to the preferences and needs of older kids (9+).

If none of these solutions fits your needs, you can consider hiring a nanny.

What about holidays?

Childcare during holidays is more complicated. There are summer camps (leiri), which are they are quite expensive. Many families play with their time off work or with remote work, and some informally agree with friends to take turns in taking time off work and looking after the kids. Some international families also ship the kids to grandparents abroad. City of Espoo regularly publishes holiday activities at this page.

This is all for today. Come back here on Saturday to read part 2 of this guide, where I’ll touch on free time, hobbies, working life, and more! I had to split it or I would have had to call it a book :P. Have I missed anything? Leave me a comment below. And as always, if you found this post useful, please consider sharing it on social media. Welcome to Espoo!